My friends, there comes a time when you are asked to review an album of a band you are truly unfamiliar with. That can make things difficult, but at the same time almost a little bit easier. You go in unbiased and can listen through the album with out any prejudgments. To make things clear, this is one of those albums. Sunflower Dead is really their own breed of metal, fusing together hard rock and the carnival sound we have learned to love from bands like Dog Fashion Disco and Polkadot Cadaver. If you notice up at the top with the list of members and their instruments you see something you don’t often see in metal, and accordion, WTF?? In metal we have learned to welcome strange/nontraditional instruments to the bands we listen to, hell look at Sleepytime Gorilla Museum they had a wall of pans and other metallic things that could make loud noises. Folk metal bands have had accordions and violins amongst other instruments, like the hurdy gurdy in Eluveitie. . these days the stranger the better!

Upon first listen, I couldn’t help but notice that the singer reminded me very much of the vocalist of the band Dope. It isn’t him, but there are certain similarities that I really enjoy with Michael’s vocal style. Needless to say while this isn’t an album I would necessarily listen to every day it really is a solid album. It has great flow from the introduction track to the closing track well second to last track. ‘Anthem of the Seeds‘ is a powerful closer and what I feel is a great tribute to their fans the “Evil Seeds.” I have found the one thing that bothers me with this album is the Intro/Outro tracks, they are evil organ sounds (probably the accordion) which in most cases would be great, but they are too short and both times they come on through the speakers I immediately thought I was listening to Ozzy Osbourne’sMr. Crowley. . Extend them out and use different chords and you have an excellent way to start and end the album, they almost seem forced.

It’s Time to Get Weird, is a very powerful album, not in the sense of heavy, heavy, chugga chugga metal that we are used to. More so in the sense that they aren’t afraid to branch out and explore. You can go from their title track featuring Jonathan Davis of Korn, a groovy and heavy tune to ‘Nothing‘ a piano laden ballad and jump right back into the weird with ‘My Mother Mortis.’ This day in radio, which we listen to so little of, it’s hard to find a band that is so different from all the crap that’s out there that actually catches our ear.That being said, Sunflower Dead are a nice break from all the Breaking Benjamin bands out there, trust us there are a LOT. This is a band that could really fit on any bill, they have already done a 22-date tour with Snot in Europe as well as a few dates in the UK with Korn, if only there were a Metal Festival that toured the US that they could play to gain more exposure. . oh wait, sorry Mayhem Fest you tried!